Senna pendula var. ovalifolia

  • Title

    Senna pendula var. ovalifolia

  • Author(s)

    Howard S. Irwin, Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Senna pendula var. ovalifolia H.S.Irwin & Barneby

  • Description

    126m. Senna pendula (Willdenow) var. ovalifolia Irwin & Barneby, nom. nov. Cassia ovalifolia Martens & Galeotti, Bull. Acad. Roy. Bruxelles 10(9): 305 = Enum. pl. Mex. 9(4): 1843.—"Coll. H. Gal[eotti] No. 3260 . . . Habite les endroits humides de la colonie allemande de Mirador [Veracruz], a 3,000 pieds."—Holotypus, BR! isotypus, K!— Adipera ovalifolia (Martens & Galeotti) Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23(4): 241. 1930.—Unjustly equated by Bentham 1871, p. 525, with Cassia bicapsularis var. pubescens (=our Senna pendula var. advena).—Non C. ovalifolia Mart, ex Colla, 1834.

    Cassia botteriana Bentham, Trans. Linn. Soc. London 27: 541. 1871.—"Mexico, on Mount Orizaba, Botteri, n. 784; between San Bias and Tepic, Coulter; near San Jose del Oro, Karwinski."—Lectotypus (Britton & Rose, 1930, p. 267, nec p. 241): Botteri 784 e mte. Orizaba, K (hb. Hook., plant at left of sheet only)! = NY Neg. 14I6.—Peiranisia botteriana (Bentham) Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23(4): 267. 1930.

    Adipera submontana Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23(4): 241. 1930.—"Zacuapam, Veracruz, February, 1924, C. A. Purpus 109. Holotypus, US, isotypus, NY, ex parte, plant at left of sheet, the other representing S. septemtrionalis.—Cassia submontana (Britton & Rose) Lundell, Phytologia 1: 215. 1937.

    Cassia bicapsularis sensu Standley, 1922, p. 407, ex parte; Isely, 1975, p. 74-76, ex parte (cult.).

    Precociously flowering, at first diffuse, when crowded leaning or vinelike, in age arborescent shrubs fertile at 1-6.5 m, the lfts glabrous or facially glabrous but ciliolate, or dorsally either barbellate in the further basal angle of midrib or thinly pilosulous overall; petiolar glands at first and rarely also at the second pair of lfts, these 3-5 (in most lvs of most plants exactly 4) pairs, the distal pair obovate or elliptic-obovate obtuse (apiculate) 18-40(-45) x (9-) 10-20 mm, the secondary veins on each side of midrib 5-8(-9), tertiary venulation obscure or weak and irregular; longest sepal 7.5-9.5(-10) mm; longest petal 11.5-14(-16) mm; blade of staminodes quadrate, short-oblong or trapeziform (broadest at undulately truncate apex) 2.1-2.6(-3.2) x 1.5-2.4 mm; 2 long abaxial filaments 710 mm, their anther slenderly lanceolate 6-7.8 x 0.9-1.2(-1.3) mm, the obscurely differentiated beak ±0.3-0.4 mm; ovary commonly pilosulous, rarely glabrate; style (2.7-)3.2-5 mm; ovules 66-108; body of pod subcylindric 10-15.5 x 1.1-1.5 cm, appearing broader when flattened in press.—Collections: 52.

    Thickets, hedges, waste places, forest openings or clearings, shores, sometimes coming out onto dunes or barrier beaches, near sea level up to 1320 m in Veracruz and up to 1300-1700 m in Venezuela, locally abundant on the e. slope and piedmont of Sa. Madre Oriental and adjoining Gulf coastal plain from near 24°N in Tamaulipas s. to s. Veracruz and Tabasco, n. (probably adventively) to the lower Rio Grande valley in extreme s. Texas and s. to the Pacific slope between w. Oaxaca and Istmo de Tehuantepec; reappearing disjunctly on the Pacific coastal plain between 23° and 27°N in Sinaloa and s. Sonora, and remotely so at 1300 m upwards in mountains of n.-w. Venezuela (Falcon and Lara); established but dubiously native in w. Cuba (Las Villas, La Habana, Pinar del Rio) and sparingly escaped from cultivation in s. peninsular Florida.—Fl. in e. Mexico, Cuba and Venezuela (VI-)VII-XII(-I), in w. Mexico III-V, VIII-XII, perhaps irregularly through the year as seasonal rains permit.—Caca de gato; cachimbo (Veracruz).

    Since Bentham’s reduction of Cassia ovalifolia to C. bicapsularis this easily recognized, primarily Mexican variety of S. pendula has been lost sight of and in the last revision (Lasseigne, adnot. ined.) has still been submerged in a polymorphic var. pendula sens. lat. The syndrome of relatively small, brachystylous flower and slender, almost beakless long anthers readily distinguishes it from other North American forms of its species. The focus of abundance of var. ovalifolia is on the Gulf slope and coastal plain in Tamaulipas and Veracruz, but we interpret the disjunct occurrence on Pacific slope in Sinaloa as probably natural, following a well recognized pattern of dispersal. It is otherwise with the Cuban material, all of which is from the neighborhood of towns and very probably cultivated or naturalized. The montane northern Venezuelan populations, apparently truly native but remotely disjunct from the main range, cannot be distinguished morphologically; we suspect nevertheless that they represent an independently evolved variant of the pendula stock, very close to the lowland Venezuelan var. meticola, which see for comment.